Ship with 700 tons of gold ore disappears

MOSCOW – A vessel with a nine-person crew and 700 tons of gold ore onboard has disappeared in stormy seas off Russia's Pacific Coast.

The ship sent a distress call on Sunday as it was sailing from the coastal town of Neran to Feklistov Island in the Sea of Okhotsk.

The vessel, hired by mining company Polymetal, was carrying 700 tons of gold ore from one deposit to another where it was to be processed. Gold ore is the material from which gold is extracted and contains only a small percentage of the precious metal.

Polymetal's spokesman on Monday would not estimate the value of the cargo.

The company said it has shipped ore via that route before, and there was nothing unusual in shipping it by the sea.

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There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." George Washington

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So we're looking at about $105k of gold, then subtract the cost of processing?

That barely covers the cost of the ship's fuel.
There must have been other things in the ore too.

There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.

"When a portion of wealth is transferred from the person who owns it—without his consent and without compensation, and whether by force or by fraud—to anyone who does not own it, then I say that property is violated; that an act of plunder is committed." - Bastiat : The Law

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Insurance scam is also possibility.... My brain gets to "evil case scenario" fast for some reason.

gold + ship=??? value

Good point on the ship.

Reminds me of that old fable....

An old man kept being stopped at the border carrying bags of dirt on his horse. Everytime he crossed the Guard would take more time sifting through the dirt to try to find what was in it, but they became sure he was smuggling something.

Ultimately, he was given a pardon of all past crimes for some heroic act, and the King asked 'since you are now pardoned of all past acts, would you let me know what was in the dirt you were smuggling so many years?"

And the guy said, "I wasn't smuggling dirt.... I was smuggling horses......"

But in this case you do have gold ore of whatever purity....

sorry for the diversion!

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The are types of clay, good white clay for example, that are worth more per tonne than gold ore.

Gold Ore is worth processing even in the parts per million range. Its not lumps of rock with nuggets sticking out.

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Business licenses aren't even a thing nor are capital gains taxes
Constitutional right to refuse any type of medical care

From this chart http://www.eoearth.org/article/Sea_o...sk?topic=49523 it is about 50 meters deep where the ship disappeared (in the far left side of this chart where it runs off the edge- Feklistov Island is the smaller one you see over there and the ship would have sailed from just off this chart- less than 100 miles) but still the question would need to be would the costs of any attempts to salvage be worth the gains from bringing the ore back up?

"At current gold prices, the 700 tonnes of gold ore may cost around $230,000, analyst Sergey Donskoy at Societe Generale said. Each tonne of ore out of the Avlayakan mine contains about 6 grammes of gold.

Possibly over-loaded. ITAR-TASS reports the load capacity of the boat was 611 tons yet was reported to be carrying 700 tons.
Sounds like the seas were a bit rough as well. The last thing heard from the ship was their SOS message. http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/559205.html

The gusts of wind reach 20 meters per second in the search area which is having sleet showers, and meteorologists said the wave height would increase to five meters.

The missing dry cargo ship was carrying 700 tons of gold-containing ore from the port township of Kiran in the Khabarovsk territory to the port of Okhotsk. It left the Kiran port, Tuguro-Chumikansky district on Sunday, October 28.

According to the technical specifications of the Amurskaya, it has the weight-carrying capacity of 611 tons, which means it might be carrying an extra 89 tons of ore. Its length is 55 meters. The vessel was built in 1973.